"Red Rider" Zamboni Keeps Hockey Rink Smooth

"Red Rider" Zamboni Keeps Hockey Rink Smooth MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 31-2-30 Last Christmas Vince Hundt, Coon Valley, Wis., got the perfect gift from his daughter and her friend - a homemade, hand-pulled Zamboni that keeps the ice smooth in his back yard skating rink. "My daughter Julia and her friend Adrian Hugo made the Zamboni out of two milk cans, a Red Rider wagon, and a couple pieces of scrap hose. It's designed to be pulled by hand and works great," says Hundt. Hundt's 80 by 40-ft. ice skating rink is equipped with wooden boards all the way around and is lit up at night by Halogen lights mounted on top of a pair of 25-ft. poles, one on each side of the rink. The Zamboni is designed to lay down a thin layer of hot water, just like a real Zamboni does. The milk cans are contained inside a wooden frame that sets inside the wagon. A hose runs from a valve at the bottom of each can and back to a 2-ft. length of copper tubing, located just behind the wagon's rear wheels. The water gravity flows out the tubing, which has a series of holes drilled into its bottom side. When you open the valve, water dribbles out the holes and onto the ice and is then smoothed out by a towel attached to a metal rod. The rod is connected to the tubing by a pair of light chains. "It really works good," says Hundt. "The operator just pulls the wagon back and forth down the rink. The wagon handle was widened so that two people can grab onto it at the same time. "My daughter got the idea from a Canadian college she attended. Their hockey building was too small to accommodate a Zamboni, so instead they used a hand-pulled model that was mounted on a wagon equipped with a heater. "Most of the time we use one milk can at a time. To heat the water, we set the can on a high performance, propane-powered turkey cooker until the water gets boiling hot." The ice skating rink is actually a pond located on top of a hill about 100 ft. from the Hundt's home, with a 400-ft. deep valley on the far side of the pond. To fill the pond, they use rain water that's collected from eave troughs on the roofs of three buildings. The water gravity flows into the pond through a pair of 4-in. dia. drain pipes set under the ground. "Any excess water flows over the edge of the pond and down into the valley," says Hundt. One end of the rink is lined by a series of 4 by 8-ft. sheets of plywood, supported on back by cross braces. "The tall boards give us a place to practice our slap shots," says Hundt. The rest of the rink is lined by plywood sheets cut to a height of 18 in. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Vince Hundt, N591 Co. Rd. PI, Coon Valley, Wis. 54623 (ph 608 452-3485; vince@rotochopper.com).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.